In a ruling that strikes at the heart of trans rights across the UK, the court has sided with anti-trans pressure group For Women Scotland, declaring that the words “sex”, “woman” and “man” in equality law must be based on “biological sex”. The decision overrides the long-established legal reading that includes trans people with Gender Recognition Certificates (GRC) under the protected characteristic of sex in the Equality Act 2010.
This ruling doesn’t just affect Scotland. It has UK-wide implications. If allowed to stand, it would remove trans women with a GRC from legal definitions of “woman” in law and policy, affecting everything from shortlists and services to employment protections. It will possibly rewrite the Equality Act in a way that explicitly excludes trans people from the legal categories they’ve long been protected under.
This legal interpretation not only undermines the purpose and application of the Equality Act but also directly contradicts established European human rights law.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled repeatedly that trans people must be legally recognised in their affirmed gender. In Christine Goodwin v. the United Kingdom (2002), the court found that the UK’s failure to fully recognise a trans woman’s gender violated Articles 8 (right to private life) and 12 (right to marry). In Van Kück v. Germany (2003), the ECtHR reinforced that trans people have the right to bodily autonomy and recognition without excessive barriers — this ruling likely fails that standard.
The possible consequences are wide-reaching:
- Trans women may no longer be legally considered women, even with a GRC.
- Trans men could be legally defined as women in contexts where “biological sex” is enforced.
- Access to single-sex services, public roles, and equality monitoring may now exclude trans people entirely.
- Service providers and employers are left in legal chaos, unsure who is protected and how.
This ruling is not a narrow technical interpretation. It’s a deliberate reshaping of equality law to exclude trans people from protection, and it creates a dangerous precedent across the UK. This ruling will have a major negative effect on cis women as well. By redefining “sex” in the Equality Act to mean strictly “biological sex,” the court has opened the door to a rigid, surveillance-based approach to womanhood — one that undermines the privacy, dignity, and autonomy of all women. Cis women could now be forced to prove their biology to access single-sex spaces or opportunities. Intersex women, women with medical variations, and anyone who doesn’t fit a narrow, state-approved version of “real” womanhood are now exposed to the same suspicion and exclusion. What began as a targeted attack on trans rights will ricochet through women’s services, equality monitoring, and legal protections, shrinking the definition of womanhood into something bureaucratic, invasive, and policed.
Trans people are not legal anomalies. The Equality Act 2010 was created to prevent discrimination, not to justify it. Today’s decision abandons that principle by twisting the law into a weapon against the very people it was meant to protect. While the court insists that trans people are still protected under the characteristics of gender reassignment and sex (based on how we’re perceived), this ruling creates confusion, and that confusion will be weaponised.
It opens the door for bad actors to claim they can legally exclude, misgender, or deny services to trans people, especially trans women, by appealing to “biological sex” as a trump card. Employers, public bodies, and service providers will now face conflicting guidance, leaving many trans people in a state of legal limbo and constant vulnerability.
In practice, this ruling will be misunderstood — in some cases, deliberately misrepresented — as permission to discriminate. It gives cover to those who have always sought to roll back trans rights, and it sends a chilling message: that the law will tolerate ambiguity when it comes to our safety and dignity.
The Equality Act was never meant to be a tool for exclusion. But after today’s ruling, that’s exactly how it will be read by those who see trans lives as negotiable.
We are calling for urgent political action, legal challenge, and solidarity from every party, institution, and person who believes in equality before the law.
This fight is not over. It is just beginning.
